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HUMBOLDT LIBRARY OF POPULAR SCIENCE LITERATURE.
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MORALS, AND OTHER ESSAYS;
Viz.: Right and Wrong; The Ethics of Belief; The Ethics of Religion.
By Morals or Ethic I mean the doctrine of a special kind of pleasure or displeasure which is felt by the human mind in contemplating certain courses of conduct, whereby they are felt to be right or wrong, and of a special desire to do the right things and avoid the wrong ones. The pleasure or displeasure is commonly called the moral sense; the corresponding desire might be called the moral appetite. These are facts, existing in the consciousness of every man who need be considered in this discussion, and sufficiently marked out by these names; they need no further definition. In the same way the sense of taste is a feeling of pleasure or displeasure in things savory or unsavory, and is associated with a desire for the one and a repulsion from the other. We must assume that everybody knows what these words mean; the feelings they describe may be analyzed or accounted for, but they cannot be more exactly defined as feelings.
The maxims of ethic are recommendations or commands of the form, 'Do this particular thing because it is right,' or 'Avoid this particular thing because it is wrong.' They express the immediate desire to do the right thing for itself, not for the sake of anything else: on this account the mood of them is called the categorical imperative. The particular things commanded or forbidden by such maxims depend upon the character of the individual in whose mind they arise. There is a certain general agreement in the ethical code of persons belonging to the same race at a given time, but considerable variations in different races and times. To the question 'What is right?' can therefore only be answered in the first instance, 'That which pleases your moral sense.' But it may be further asked 'What is generally thought right?' and the reply will specify the ethic of a particular race and period. But the ethical code of an individual, like the standard of taste, may be modified by habit and education; and accordingly the question may be asked, 'How shall I order my moral desires so as to be able to satisfy them most completely and continuously? What ought I to feel to be right?' The answer to this question must be sought in the study of the conditions under which the moral sense was produced and is preserved; in other words, in the study of its functions as a property of the human organism. The maxims derived from this study may be called maxims of abstract or absolute right; they are not absolutely universal, 'eternal and immutable,' but they are independent of the individual, and practically universal for the present condition of the human species.